


Hunting

by dandelioness



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelioness/pseuds/dandelioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Purgatory may be big, but it's (probably) not infinite.  He was bound to encounter some familiar faces eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunting

**Author's Note:**

> So I just rewatched 1.09 "Home," and I thought to myself, Self, where you you suppose ghosts go when they die? Well, I answered, I suppose they go to Purgatory with the rest of the monsters.  
> Thus, this happened.  
> Canon-compliant, pretty much, taking place between s7 and s8, so spoilers up through the s8 Purgatory flashbacks.

            According to Benny’s estimates, Dean’s been in Purgatory for almost twelve months when it happens.  They’ve already got Cas and they’re trying to fight their way to the damn portal, chopping off Leviathan heads every time they turn a damn corner.

            And then one day, they turn a corner and someone else is chopping off the Leviathan’s head.  Someone tall and fierce and blonde and achingly familiar.

            “Mom?” Dean croaks, hardly daring to believe – after all, how many things down here do you think can take her shape if they want?  Shifters, Leviathan – hell, the Mother of All could still be down here, too.

            “Hey, honey,” she says, and her face softens and Dean knows, he just _knows_ , that it’s really her.  Still, he looks to Cas for confirmation.  Cas gives a curt nod; Benny behind him looks confused as all hell, but Dean doesn’t care because _holy shit, his mom is here_.

            He crosses to her quickly, throwing his arms around her and clutching her close.  “What the hell are you doing here?” he demands as he pulls away, searching her face for some sign of…of monster-hood.  Mary raises her eyebrows as if to say, _language_.  Dean raises his right back, because, _really Mom? I am thirty-six years old_.

            “I stayed when I died, remember?” She smiles sadly at him, brushes a smudge of dirt uselessly from his cheekbone.  “I became what I had to become.  To protect the house.  To protect my boys.  And where do monsters go when we die?”

            “Mom, you’re not – “

            “Dean, I am what I am,” she says firmly.  “Now, I think the better question is, what the hell are _you_ doing here?”

            “Dunno,” Dean shrugs.  “Me and Cas got pulled in when we stabbed the top dog Leviathan, but we’re still alive, apparently.”

            “It’s more than apparent,” Benny says snidely from behind, reminding Dean that there are other people there.  “It’s shiny, and it’s attractin’ all kinds of fun dinner guests.”

            “Well, yeah,” Dean concedes.  “Anyway, Benny here says he knows a way to shove our sorry asses back where we belong.”

            “ _Your_ sorry ass, brother,” Benny drawls.  “I keep telling you, there’s nothing doing for the angel.”

            “He’s right, Dean,” Cas starts in for the thousandth time, but Dean cuts him off.

            “Shut up, both of you,” he snaps.  “We’re all getting through.  Cas, too.”

            “Dean, honey?” Mary interrupts, with no small amount of amusement in her voice.  “Mind introducing me to your friends?”

            “Oh, uh, yeah,” Dean says, embarrassed.  “Guys, this is my mom, Mary Winchester.  Mom, this is Benny, he’s a dead vampire who wants back topside, which he assures me is okay because he’s all human-free and fluffy now.  And this is Cas.  Castiel.  He’s…” Dean hesitates, inexplicably nervous.  How does he explain Cas?  _He’s the one who gripped me tight and raised me from perdition.  He’s an angel of the Lord.  Or he was, before he ate Purgatory – maybe you remember that? – and became god._   “He’s my friend.”

            “It’s nice to meet you,” Mary says, and shakes both their hands.

            “A pleasure, ma’am,” Benny says politely.  Cas just looks solemn, but then his eyes widen and he turns to Dean.

            “Dean, Leviathan – “

            “Shit, Mom, we gotta – “

            “Follow me,” she says without hesitation.  “Camp’s not too far from here.”

            “Camp?” Dean asks, bewildered, but she takes him by the hand and drags him forward.  He can hear the sounds of Benny and Cas following close behind.  It’s not long before she skids to a sudden halt and stomps twice on the ground, which – wait, that sounds hollow –

            Opens to reveal a dark-haired girl with an anxious face.  “Oh thank god,” she says, stepping aside and ushering Mary down through the trapdoor into the ground.  “We were getting worri – Dean?”

            Dean slides down behind Mary and does a double take at the face before him.  “Madison?”

            “What are you doing – “ they begin simultaneously, but Benny cuts them both off.

            “Hate to break up the reunion folks, but the angel and I want in before the Leviathan get here.”

            “Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Dean says, hurriedly sidestepping out of the way.  The other two jump down, and the trapdoor slams shut behind them, leaving them in a long stone passage lit only by a couple of makeshift torches on the wall.

            “Damn, Mom,” Dean whistles.  “What’ve you been doing down here?”

            “Hunting,” she says, and her smile is hard, more like John’s in that moment than her own.

            Dean quickly wipes the thought from his mind.

            “Seriously, Mary, Dean Winchester is your kid?” Madison says, sounding faintly amused as she leads the ragtag group unquestioningly down the passage.  “You never said.”

            “How do you know Dean?” Mary asks, curious.

            Dean and Madison exchange a look of _well, this is awkward_ before Madison shrugs and says, “We met when I got turned.  He and Sam told me what was happening to me, and when we couldn’t find a cure…”

            “You mean to tell me you murdered this lovely young thing here, Dean?” Benny says accusingly.

            “No, actually, that would be Sam,” Dean blurts.

            “Awkward,” says another familiar voice, as they emerge from the hall into a large, high-ceilinged, cave-like room.

            “Who’s there now – Lenore?”

            “Hi, Dean.  Benny.”  Lenore’s face contorts into a complicated emotion that Dean can’t quite read.  “Castiel.”

            “I’m sorry,” is what Castiel says in response.

            “This is just weird,” Dean sighs, and Madison snorts her agreement.  “Someone wanna explain this to me?”

            “Well,” says Mary, “Like I said, we’re hunters.  Sit down,” she adds, gesturing to what appears to be surprisingly well-crafted wooden chairs.  “This may take a while.”

            They settle in, a ragtag group indeed – two dead vampires, a dead werewolf, a dead ghost, her living son, and his best friend the ex-god kinda-angel.  Because Dean’s life couldn’t get any weirder, right?

            “I got here almost ten years ago now,” Mary continues, “And it was…I mean, you’ve seen Purgatory, it’s a mess.  Mind, I hadn’t hunted anything since I married John, something like thirty years ago?  More?  And I had vowed I never would again, but…it’s kill or be killed, down here.

            “Along the way, I started to notice familiar faces – things I’d killed, or that my parents had, and they’d recognize me, and they’d come after me.  I had to learn teamwork in order to survive.  About a year in, I met Madison, here, and we started protecting each other, watching each other’s back.

            “And I guess we discovered the same thing early humans did when they invented civilization,” Mary adds with a slight laugh, and Madison grins.  “When you’re not spending every second just trying to survive, you have to…well, to live, I guess.  We found the cave one day, hiding from a wendigo, and turned it into a base of sorts.  Who knew that the same knives we were using to fight could be used to build chairs?”  Dean doesn’t have to ask where they got knives in the first place; he just has to look down at the makeshift weapon in his own hands.  His brain tries to make sense of the idea of his mom acting with the kind of mindless brutality he’s been surviving on down here, but it just doesn’t compute.  Not that he tries very hard to make it compute; the very thought makes his stomach roil.

            “We had a system worked out by the time we met Lenore, and others had come and gone, but Lenore is the first who’s stayed.”  Mary smiles at Lenore, and Lenore returns it.  “Lenore was what really changed what we were doing.  Maddy and I were just surviving, but Lenore, she’s on a mission.”

            “I want to find the other members of my coven,” Lenore supplies quietly.  “They’re here, somewhere, and I want to see them again.  After all, we’d already chosen to spend eternity together once,” she supplies with a crooked smile.

            “I wouldn’t mind meeting other wolves,” Madison supplies.  “You know, who aren’t crazy with power or bloodlust or whatever.”

            “Good luck with that,” Benny mutters, but it goes ignored.

            “And I,” Mary finishes quietly, “Want to find John.”

            “You think Dad’s down here, too?” Dean says hoarsely.  “Even after – “ _After the deal, after the Devil’s Gate?_

            “Honestly?  I don’t know.  But if there’s a chance…”

            Dean nods.  He understands.

 

            Mary’s group invites Dean’s to stay the night – or rather, what passes for night in Purgatory – rather than try to get further toward the portal.

            “You’re close,” she says, surprising Dean with her knowledge that this thing even exists.  “Another day, maybe two.  We can start out with you, help you if the fighting gets too rough.  Right, ladies?”  The other two nod.  “In the meantime, you all look like you could use some rest.”

            Truer words were never spoken.

            Dean drags Cas to a corner of the cave and lets him get settled in on the floor, sitting with his legs crossed, before he pillows his own head on Cas’s shoulder and curls up against the angel as has become their habit.  (Dean doesn’t like to think about it; he just knows that, after Cas being gone for so long, after Cas _avoiding_ him for so long, he likes to know that Cas is _there_.  Solid and _there_.  And if Dean feels just a little bit safer with Cas beside him, wakeful and watching, well, that’s his own damn business, isn’t it.)

            (They’re in goddamn Purgatory, okay, safety is a priority.)

            He falls asleep almost immediately, because you’ve gotta be able to fall asleep at a moment’s notice here if you want to get any rest at all.  But the thing is, you’ve also gotta be able to wake up at a moment’s notice, which means that Dean is alert the moment Mary murmurs to Cas, “So you’re the angel who swallowed us all up?”

            “Yes,” Cas says, simple, honest, and obviously guilt-ridden.

            “I thought you’d be…different,” she says contemplatively.

            “I was.  I was…terrible, and all for the sake of a misguided attempt to – “

            “I know, Castiel,” Mary cuts him off gently.  “We know.  We were there.”

            “I’m so, so very sorry,” Cas says, and his voice breaks.  Which pisses Dean off, because, yeah, dude fucked up bigtime, but still.  He did the best he could at the time.

            “I know,” Mary says again, and it’s quiet for a while.  Dean can feel it when her gaze turns to him, can feel her watching him, and it makes his chest clench.  “You know, when Dean was a baby, do you know what I would tell him?  I’d say, _angels are watching over you_.

            “Thanks for not making a liar out of me.”

 

            The next morning, Madison checks the trapdoor and gives them the all-clear, and they set out.  It’s…different, with the six of them, rather than just the three of them.  The women brighten the mood, and Dean hears laughter, real, genuine laughter, for the first time since coming to Purgatory.  Benny and Lenore, who apparently already knew each other, spend most of the walk catching up; Madison strikes up conversation with Cas, curious about angels and demons.  There’s surprisingly little monster activity, and it’s more like a hike or a day trip or something _normal_ than a trek through monsterland for a magical portal.

            Dean stays close to Mary, not talking much, just reveling in her presence.  You wouldn’t think you could miss someone so much when you’d only known them for the first four years of your life, but god, he misses her.  Misses the place where she should have been in his life, misses the life she could have had.  The life _they_ could’ve had, the whole family.  They walk side by side, one occasionally reaching out to touch the other, reaffirming that they’re _there_ , together, even though it’s impossible and they both know they can’t stay.

            Reality hits around midday, when Cas stops mid-sentence to whirl around and shout, “Leviathan!”

            “Fuck,” Dean mutters, and immediately feels guilty when Mary shoots him a disapproving look.

            “Madison, Lenore?”  There’s more to her question, but she apparently doesn’t have to voice it, because the other two just nod.  They step away from Cas and Benny, and Dean watches as fangs and claws come out and Madison lets out a low growl.  Mary smiles approvingly and turns back to Dean.  “You boys, go.  We’ll hold them off, get most of them for you.”

            “Mom – “ Dean starts, but he doesn’t know what to say, and _dammit_ he is not going to cry in Purgatory, because, _fuck_ , he’s just _not,_ okay?

            “Dean, honey,” she says softly, hand soft on his cheek.  “We’ll be fine.  We’ve been doing this a long time.  And besides,” she adds, far more cheerfully than necessary, “We’re dead.”

            “Right.”  He draws a deep breath.  Then, “Oh yeah,” Dean remembers suddenly, even though it’s not exactly the opportune moment, what with the monsters closing in from all sides.  “What happens to the things we kill here?”

            Mary grins, and it’s sharper than Dean expects.  He tries not to think about what must happen for people who are down here for too long – what ten years in Purgatory must do to your soul.

            “We come back,” she says, and throws herself, suddenly flaming, onto a black-suited Leviathan.


End file.
